K. This is the 1st working draft of vol. VI. It still ... - From Marx to Mao

COMMUNISM AND DICTATORSHIP*
November !(@) — January !(@!
FROM MARX
TO MAO
In his lecture at Changsha, Russell . . . took a position in favour
of communism but against the dictatorship of the workers and peasants.
He said that one should employ the method of education to
change the consciousness of the propertied classes, and that in this
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way it would not be necessary to limit freedom or to have recourse
to war and bloody revolution. . . . My objections to Russell’s viewpoint
can be stated in a few words: “This is all very well as a theory,
but it is unfeasible in practice.”. . . Education requires money, people
and instruments. In today’s world money is entirely in the hands of
the capitalists. Those who have charge of education are all either
capitalists or wives of capitalists. In today’s world the schools and
the press, the two most important instruments of education are en-
NOT FOR
COMMERCIAL
tirely under capitalist control. In short, education in today’s world
is capitalist education. If we teach capitalism to children, these
children, when they grow up will in turn teach capitalism to a sec-
ond generation of children. Education thus remains in the hands of
the capitalists. Then the capitalists have “parliaments” to pass laws
protecting the capitalists and handicapping the proletariat; they have
“governments” to apply these laws and to enforce the advantages
DISTRIBUTION
and the prohibitions that they contain; they have “armies” and “po-
lice” to defend the well-being of the capitalists and to repress the
demands of the proletariat; they have “banks” to serve as repositories
in the circulation of their wealth; they have “factories”, which
are the instruments by which they monopolize the production of
goods. Thus, if the communists do not seize political power, they
will not be able to find any refuge in this world; how, under such
circumstances, could they take charge of education? Thus, the capitalists
will continue to control education and to praise their capital
* Extracted from two letters to Tsai Ho-sen, in November 1920 and January
1921.
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